Category: Uncategorized

There is no particular sound
that rustles through the trees,
different from the music
we listen to.
different than the sounds
our hearts are used to.
Your hands grab and hold me
like I have somewhere
better to be,
fingers interwoven
against the middle
of my back,
like tiny branches,
like this is where you
planned to be,
settling deeper
into my chest.

I press my lips to your forehead,
a place filled with dark honey
surrounded by mahogany oak,
where dreams sit and they soak
until they are sticky and ripe.

I kiss you like
the night has no end,
like your bones have endless marrow,
like there isn’t another you.
Your arms are still.
Your lips say nothing.
There is no particular sound
that rustles through the trees,
no different than how
my heartbeat
thumps against yours.

May my love’s laughter
echo in the halls of God —
let angels envy.

Cold afloat
Down the remedies
I dream of you again
I know I am asleep
I hate you less in my dreams
Sometimes I forgive you
And sometimes I miss you
I know I want to curse you
So I do under my breath
I hope you suffer insomnia
I hope you never sleep
Under heavy eyes
I carry your stupid pain
Curse you a thousand years
For cursing me first

written after the Syrian crisis

It doesn’t matter where we go
Or even where we stay,
We are all immigrants

Some leave home
To arrive as immigrants
Some stay in place
But feel displaced

Who is Turkish these days?
Who is American?
What is a Londoner?

i visit Ellis Island where my grandparents landed
Today In Krakow, Berlin, New York survivors remember

Immigrants run from oppression
Aim for freedom
Some make it
Others don’t

Who are these displaced people?
Who will receive them?
Who will listen?
Let alone who will welcome them?

What am I supposed to do?
Does anything I do matter?
Exhaustion overwhelms while babies cry

Are you listening God?
Are you there?
Kindly pick up the fucking phone
I am calling you!

So many deaths
of ideas,
hopes,
futile whispers trying to be heard

Come now, my friends,
How bad does it have to get
To wake up compassion

Drugged we walk the streets
Drugged we sit and wait for something unknowable to happen

I read Allan Kaprow’s essays on the blurring of art and life
Can poems and still lives heal us
One artist, one storyteller, one poet at a time
Put their souls on the page, the stage, the canvas

Create a minute,
A breath to a quiet the mind

A space, a place,
to be
present to the heart beat

I remember visiting the Everglades when I was six
And knowing it was special
I remember taking a course on Florida wildlife
And knowing there was nothing quite like it
I don’t like Florida, but I miss it, I miss what it used to be

My mom would take me to see what was left of Old Florida
Teaching me about our natives
People and plants
Making sure I knew which were invasive,
Retelling stories of when she was my age
Seeing alligators and manatees
While we sat in the fields of my papa’s nursery
Riding on the dirt road back home

Now, almost two decades later
It’s hard for me to call Florida my home
When its officials are killing it
My land is not a prison,
But they’re making it one

One way in
One way out

When I go to the beach
There are 3-story-mansions built on top of
Sand dunes, a king on his throne in Mar-a-Lago
Guarded by school buses
Afraid of being shot, but not by cops

They sit behind their guarded gate, guns in hand
Glad to know the violent people are gone
Tucked away in the wetlands
In a building that will drown them
Come the first hurricane of the season

Dear you,

Five beers in
with Soco shots to match,
and you stumble
to the dive bar
karaoke machine
to sing “Strokin’,”
heedless of key or rhythm
for the seventh week in a row.

A transwoman
defending immigrants in court,
and your wife worries
the target on your back couldn’t be bigger,
but you keep writing
articles, press releases,
posts on social media,
writing anywhere to tell people
about human beings
demonized for political gain,
for political games.

The first three souffles
fall in the oven,
with each one
so too falls part of your confidence,
but nevertheless,
you persist,
and nothing
has been as delicious
as the fourth souffle,
standing proud
and triumphant
as you pull it from the oven.

Green hair dye
and magic marker sign
run in the rain
as you stand beside College Avenue
still protesting everything wrong with the world
as car horns voice their
anger or agreement.

Yarn dances across
the end of
your crochet hook
turning a ball of wool
into curtains for a new house,
this stitch experimental,
the first time you’ve tried it,
and with each completed row
you hold out
the ever-growing panel
before a judicial eye
making sure
it meets standards.

Resisting the urge
to call your child every day
and ask if they’ve seen
the news
only heightens your anxiety.
You know they’ve paused watching news,
Because it’s hard enough
being trans in
America
today
without doom scrolling
or binge watching.

I return to poetry
after fifteen years
after a lifetime
because I demand
that the world be beautiful
and I demand of myself
that I do what I can
to make it so.

Dear you,
this poem is
my love letter to you.

She charged me
A dollar to pee.
Gracias.

Saying adios
To a ninety-year-old man
Se rompe the heart

He is handsome,
My grandson, he says,
Meeting his grandson

Adios hurts
Dead by next January
We have three pictures.

Have you ever wondered who made your clothes?
Where they come from, how they get to the store?
At the good ol’ swap meet you can find imposter designers from all over the world.
Santa Fe Springs Swap Meet was my sister and I’s playground.
It was a tradition in our family to visit at least once a month,
almost weekly during the summer.
Mom and Dad would sip their Micheladas from enormous cups
my hands couldn’t even wrap around.
I remember the beer line always being long,
watching the Cover Band of the night to pass time.
When I say the good ol’ Santa Fe Springs Swap Meet,
I mean the Santa Fe Springs Swap meet.
If you’re from L.A. the Santee Alley
and swap meets are embedded within our culture.
You can find anything from delectable desserts,
down to designer handbags.
La señoras will say it’s designer,
but the natives know.
You see,
swap meets mean something to us.
It’s where families gather, memories are made.
Meals and items are purchased at such a low value.
Memories that can never be replaced
remain without a price tag.
That
is what makes the
Good Ol’ Sante Fe Springs Swap Meet
so good to our families.

What do you do with a broken clock?
Throwing it away is killing time.
And I’ve had enough of that
No matter what I do, time is always moving forward.

Is it TikTok or tick and tock
Can you talk with your broken clock?
Maybe it will listen
If we burst its bubble.

Can I live with this broken clock
Residing rent free on my mantlepiece
I give it a glance and I disagree
But it never looks at me

How would Dali see my broken clock
Let it melt and reform above the flames
Swirling all the colors into gray
Floating into the smoke away.

Even with my broken clock
I can find just two agreements
And must remember
Even broken
This clock is correct
Twice a day.

I suffered.
They suffered.

I broke.
I broke them.

I gave life.
I took life.

With every drop of blood
that lit my eyes,
my soul was purified.

Minutes remained
before they would claim me.
I had chosen
to be caught.

The people
beyond these prison bars
are weary,
so very weary.

The time has come
to step into my kingdom.

Now, and forever ;
Death wins.